


Dismantlement

by transmaniandevil



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BDSM, Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Bottom Tony Stark, Consensual Kink, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Good BDSM Etiquette, Heavy BDSM, I'm sick of only bad bdsm etiquette being shown, M/M, Masochist Tony Stark, Random & Short, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Sadist Stephen Strange, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Top Stephen Strange, very short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transmaniandevil/pseuds/transmaniandevil
Summary: Doctor Stephen Strange likes to take things apart, piece by bloody piece. But he's a professional about it. Never let it be said that Stephen Strange was an irresponsible sadist. Growing a conscience is troublesome like that.
Relationships: Christine Palmer/Stephen Strange, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Immutable : The Setup

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in a really really really long time and I'm trying to get back into it. Encouragement is appreciated.

Through lessons and lifetimes, a person’s core essence never truly wavers. There’s something deep down, a temperament, a sort of immutable – he didn’t want to call it a soul, even now—that no matter how many cloaks, masks, or magic obscured it; remained constant. A shiny, perfect sphere of liquid mercury, pooling, boiling, and undulating in upon itself, a pensive; sometimes swirling in memory, but steadfast. It keeps its shape. He thinks maybe the Ancient One foresaw this as well, just as she had foreseen all things. A man like Dr. Stephen Strange could not transform fully into that selfless hero he had learned (and on some level been coerced) to become. A small part of the original Stephen, tucked away in an oubliette, waiting for the right opportunity to slake its thirst. For what? Renown? A fast car to replace the one he totaled all those years ago? Not quite. And yet, everyone deserves to take the opportunity to be selfish from time to time, after all. It’s called self-care. Get with the program.

Stephen liked to take things apart. Slowly, painfully, almost cloyingly; and this had always extended towards people. It was why he had been such a good neurosurgeon. His expertise as a surgeon and relative indifference towards superficial suffering is precisely what allowed him the freedom of creativity and the ability to toe the line between medicine and lunacy, between science and art. But edging just barely too far across the line where enough becomes too much? That was such a rare joy. It could compromise patient care outcomes—and the ultimate gratification was his perfect track record. But beneath all that bravado, there lingered a darkness; a hunger. He knew the Ancient One had seen that, too; that was why she saw him so shockingly similar to Kaecilius, he imagined. Christine had also seen it. Bless her. Off the record, she let him take her apart, piece by bloody piece—under the strict professional stipulation that she be put back together again, just the way she was, when they were through. And she never betrayed his trust and blabbed to her friends like he had first thoughtlessly worried she would. Most generous of all, she was kind enough to accrue her vacation time towards the aftermath, the planned convalescence. She said all she wanted to be doing on her vacations was laying around and sleeping anyway, so it didn’t matter whether she was healing from traumatic injury. At the time he didn’t care enough to question whether that was true, he was so itching to revel in precise brutality for its own beauty. All of this would be much easier now; with the powers. He even tried to pitch the idea to her for old time’s sake, since they started talking again after Dormammu. But they weren’t the same people, anymore—well, she was the same. Compassionate and insightful as always. He was different; better. But the double-edged sword of being such an “effortlessly” selfless individual means you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes it hardly seemed worth it, especially in situations such as this. Ethical guidelines to Stephen used to be little more than a set of arbitrary rules that you happened to be required to follow in order to keep your license. They seemed like a waste of time, most of them. Almost nonsensical. Dr. Stephen Strange never claimed to be a humanitarian, never claimed to be a philanthropist. With his status as sorcerer supreme, and with the Eye of Agamotto, the possibilities for exploration were quite literally limitless. He could have had so much no-strings-attached fun. But the fates were cruel and Stephen had grown a conscience to rival his exacting tastes. And neither of those things were something he could change about himself; and believe him, he has tried. Christine had always said that she could tell he was a good man beneath all the ego. At the time, he couldn’t have cared one iota less. And now that he saw she was right, it was just… so incredibly inconvenient. It was also incredible inconvenience that brought him to when he first met Tony Stark.

“Did you seriously just say ‘hitherto undreamt of?”

“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?”

“Oh, is that what this is?”

Honestly? He found Tony’s audacity and irreverence beyond obnoxious. Tony reminded Steven somewhat sardonically of himself—which was apropos here because it was that same instant that he realized how much he wanted this man, this Iron Man, and strip him all the way down to the most basic fundamental instincts of the man’s life; he wanted to peel off his plating, his wires, his flesh, his bones. He wanted to bleed him out and replace his vital essences with a solution of formaldehyde and watch him stiffen in noxious totality. He wanted to take this man apart down to his very atoms and scatter them in blazing fire through the cosmos and revel in each and every scream.

“What’s your job anyway? Besides making little balloon animals?”

“Protecting your reality, douchebag.”


	2. A Brief Continuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to the singular shining soul that asked me to continue with this fic. I'd briefly worked on a second chapter, but not completed and didn't really intend to update. If you like or don't like where I'm going with this, let me know and I'll happily tailor it to suit your interests.

Of course all that was a very long time ago.

In their own microcosm, Tony held his wrists together and raised them in supplication as he half-crawled half-shambled across cool stone towards Stephen. He was bleeding profusely from the site of a compound fracture on his right tibia, his injured leg dragging behind him, splintered bone protruding through the flesh. The exposed bone felt like crashing, gnashing, grinding your teeth into tinfoil electric shocks. He left a trail of sticky hot blood in his wake.

“Tony? Checking in. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Are you okay to continue?” Stephen broke character for a few moments to ask; never let it be said that he was an irresponsible Dom. Irresponsible is the same as unprofessional; an abhorrent quality for abhorrent individuals, thank you very much. In all manner of conduct, Dr. Stephen Strange acted the consummate professional; it was a matter of self-respect more than anything else. Where some people, like Christine, might be motivated by something gentle like compassion, Stephen was not. He never would be and he did not pretend to be.

Tony, pain-drunk and reeling, did not respond at first. When he opened his mouth, he couldn’t find the words, and just nodded. A sigh of irritation from Stephen.

“That’s not good enough, Tony. I need specific verbal confirmation if we are to continue. You know the rules” Who said giving a damn about your sub’s wellbeing couldn’t be sexy? Well, Tony said so at first. Tony was, had been, reckless. A no-holds-barred masochist, no safeword, no limits. Stephen’s first action as Tony’s Dom was to help him to establish those limits—for both their sakes. There was a reason why Tony’s prior kinky misadventures ended up just a long list of one-night stands. Disappointing short romps in the club. The potential for true exploration with Stephen was too good an offer to pass up; and so he agreed to the terms. Tony liked restraints, but not to _feel_ restrained. Paradoxically, Tony felt freer floating in this subspace, utterly enraptured, and inexorably subjugated—than he ever did in his day-to-day existence on top of the world. And he was grateful someone like Stephen Strange could provide him with that, but he always choked on the words.

“Oh for Fuck’s sake, Stephen!” Tony groaned, “Yes, I’m ready to continue.”

“Language”, a momentary warning, as Stephen made complex motions in the air with his hands, partially for show, magic following his movements into a glyph. Tony watched these movements with an air of trepidation and awe as the air around him began to vibrate with energy. Sparks crackled around him along with the gritting shifting of bone on jagged bone. Crepitus, Tony remembered Stephen calling it. It was a word that to Tony felt clinical and detached. He remembered being gently prodded by EMTs when he fell back to Earth when he and the Avengers stopped the Chitauri Invasion. Tony gnashed his teeth to hold back the screams as long as he could, because he wanted to show how completely he was overcome when his will finally shattered. He felt more than saw Stephen smirking darkly, an expression blown wide, larger than life as it tore him asunder.


End file.
